Kangaroos are Under Attack - Get Active!

After being contacted by a "whistleblower" from within the kangaroo industry, animal protection groups from around Australia rallied together to expose the cruelty, contamination and dwindling numbers of certain kangaroo species who are slaughtered for a niche export market where profits are earned by a select few. The groups, including Animal Liberation, Wildlife Protection Association of Australia (WPAA), Animals Australia, Australian Wildlife Protection Council (AWPC), and others have been investigating the industry for the last two years and have found damning evidence which will more than likely halt this brutal trade.

Note that the whistleblower will remain nameless for safety reasons.

Over twenty-four chillers around the states of New South Wales (NSW) and southern Queensland (QLD) were inspected and swabs were taken from the kangaroo carcasses.

In summary, the findings suggest that:

Between 70 and 80% of all kangaroos shot are currently female. This means that there is a population imbalance between males and females. Obviously there are more females than males now as most of the big male kangaroos have already been shot which leaves the bigger females to be shot.

Another worrying fact is that for all the carcasses sighted in the chillers, a lot of them were only just above the minimum allowed weight for human consumption (13 kg in New South Wales), and some actually weighed less. Females at this weight would be unlikely to even have had their first joey. The kangaroos allowed to be killed in New South Wales and Queensland are Eastern Reds and Eastern and Western Greys. Obviously there were male carcasses in the chillers; however, none of them were even close to what would be considered a 'big red' that would have a weight of around 25 kg or higher. Up to 65 kg alive!

The swab results revealed contamination of carcasses with the bacteria E. coli, Streptococcus and Staphylococcus. They showed muscle tissue having an active growth of these microbes from low to heavy growth.

The method approved by the Australian Government for killing a joey at foot is to either bash it over the head with a heavy object, or to chop its head off with an axe. This is essentially too brutal to think about and, as mentioned above, the majority of the kangaroos being shot are female. If even half of those females have a joey at foot, then up to one million joeys were killed this way in 2007 under the approved kill quota of 3.8 million kangaroos.

As per the Canadian seal massacre, killing of baby animals is an extremely traumatic experience; it is in no way humane, and can in no way be regulated. We are living in the 21st century and still allowing medieval practices to occur in the outback of Australia. It is necessary to condemn the killing of kangaroos solely on this point alone.

At the end of the investigation in March 2007, knowing that they needed to move with this information quickly, Animal Liberation and the Wildlife Protection Association of Australia sent a delegation overseas to Russia (which is the biggest export country) and Europe to inform not only the public about these concerns, but also the relevant health ministers in the various countries as well as European Union representatives.

So far there has been significant media attention in Russia, and several restaurants in Berlin have been visited, as well as the Consular General, Foreign Affairs and Trade based in the Australian Embassy in Berlin.

The true outcome of any meetings will not be known for some time. However, the leading company which exports kangaroo meat for human consumption has closed all its chiller doors in New South Wales, which, as far as a discerning eye can tell, is as big an admission of guilt if ever there were one.

The Russian spokesperson of the National Meat Association has already stated that kangaroo meat is not a significant contributor to their economy.

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Animal Friends is a non-profit, non-governmental organization, founded in 2001 with the aim to promote animal protection and animal rights as well as veganism, as ethical, ecological and healthy lifestyle.
Animal Friends Croatia is a member organization of EVU,
Eurogroup for Animals, ECEAE, FFA, IAFC and OIPA.